All This Time
by passerbyinlife
Summary: The adventures of Sherlock and the Tenth Doctor.
1. Chapter 1

Six years old Sherlock Holmes woke up in the middle of the night, feeling unreasonably frightened as he switched on the lamp next to his bed. There was something at the foot of his bed. It wasn't there before, he noted, as sleep ebbed away from the corners of his eyes and he got a clearer look at it. It was a stone statue, hands over its eyes, crouching at the foot of his bed. How very odd, he mused. Yet his musings were interrupted rudely by the sudden flickering of lights, as his lamp seemed to stutter for a split second. He looked at the statue again, and it seemed to have moved. Its hands were no longer covering its eyes, and its mouth was wide open, showing frighteningly pointed teeth. Sherlock heard a squeak escape from his mouth, as the shock forced sleep to retract from his brain and he started to think things over.

It wasn't a dream. If it was, he would have been awake by now. Dreams normally end right after a shock. The moving statue evidently wasn't here for a cup of tea and some chit- chat, and because of that he should really get out of this room. But to where? His parents and Mycroft were gone, for Mycroft had to go to the other side of the state for a interview to get in some private school, and Mommy and Daddy both decided to go with him. They trusted Sherlock to be able to take care of himself. Their house was in the middle of literally nowhere, so the possibility of him managing to find an adult who could help him was painfully slim. He heard Mycroft's snobbish voice in his head, sounding the way he did when Sherlock took too long to figure out his 'puzzles', 'That's just stupid, Sherlock. You're just stupid. Who you're going to find after you get out of this doesn't matter, considering your current situation.' Of course. The statue. He had to get away from it first before thinking about what to do next. He was skipping steps again. The statue seemed to have moved when the lamp went off. When it couldn't be seen. He had to keep his eyes on it, to prevent it from getting to him. His lamp flickered again as he jumped out of his bed and ran to the door, keeping his eyes firmly glued on the statue as he pulled at the doorknob.

The door refused to budge. He could hear the insistent, high- pitched whining of something from the other side of the door as the realisation that he was trapped hit him fully. He leaned against the door helplessly, as the flickering of the lamp got more and more constant, as the buzzing outside the door grew more and more persistent, as the angel got nearer and nearer and he prepared himself for his inevitable death. He wondered what dying was going to feel like.

The buzzing stopped suddenly and he felt the door swing open behind him. He spun around and nearly bumped into the man behind him. 'Hello there, I'm the Doctor,' the man stated cheerfully, his eyes fixed on the statue. 'What's your name?' This really isn't the right time, Sherlock thought, yet he still replied, 'Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.' 'Nice to meet you, Sherlock. Now run!' The Doctor slammed the door shut and took out what looked like a screwdriver and pointed it at the door. It began to emit some sort of high- pitched, whining noise. Oh, Sherlock thought as he turned around and ran down the corridor. Now he knew what all that whining sound outside his door just now was all about.

He turned a corner and nearly bumped head first into a statue. It's hands were outstretched, almost as if it was reaching out for him. Sherlock noted that there were four more other statues on the stairs. He skidded to a stop and called out, 'Doctor?' A reassuring, human hand clamped down on his shoulder. 'I'm here, Sherlock. Now, we have to find a way to get down there without allowing the Angels to touch us. How might we be able to do so?'

The Angels took up the entire width of the stair, so navigating among them without coming in contact with any of them would be a impossible task. There was no other route. The stairs were the only way down. Of course they could try the windows, but it seemed that the Doctor wanted to go downstairs, not outside, as if he had left something very important down there, Sherlock thought. The Doctor's shoulders seemed a bit too tense. Tense. Present tense, past tense. Doctor. The Doctor. But Doctor who? You can't be named Doctor. For Christ's sake, focus! Screamed the Mycroft- in- his-head. Right. Down. And then he thought of the day Mycroft and his parents left. Sherlock had slid down the bannisters and was chastised by his mother. The bannisters. Oh. 'The bannisters,' he told the Doctor.

'Ah, clever lad!' The Doctor beamed. Now, keep your eyes on them as you go and don't let any of them touch you. Allons-y! Just in case you were interested, it's French for-'

'Let's go. I know,' Sherlock stated as he climbed onto the bannister, while the Doctor stared after the child, a look of thoughtful surprise plastered on his face.

Sherlock slid down the bannister, feeling the wind against his face and enjoying it. He managed to go past two Angels, yet he must had blinked, for now the third Angel creature was leaning to its left. A few more seconds, and he would end up in it's arms.

Bracing himself, he pushed himself off the bannister and onto the trampoline on the ground floor, a birthday present that Sherlock had gotten bored of after two days of jumping and somersaulting on and, because of that, had been left in the nook of the stairs to rot. Sherlock had never been more grateful of its presence than the moment he was enveloped by the soft, starchy fabric. He rolled out of it clumsily, scanning the sitting room warily. The first thing that caught his attention was the bright blue police box in the corner of the room. He wondered where it came from. The next thing that caught his eye (and also alarmed him greatly) was the mob of angels, standing on both sides of his sitting room, inanimate for now as he was staring at them. Yet the sheer number of them was, in the mildest of terms, shocking to him. And then he realised that all the lights in the entire house had been, oddly enough, switched on. It must have been the Doctor. 'Funny, they don't seem to be particularly interested in me. They only seem to want you,' The Doctor stated as he casually slid down the bannister. Sherlock looked back at the stairs yet there were no longer any angels on it. It seemed that they had joined their comrades on the two sides of the sitting room. 'All- righty then. You keep your eyes on the group of Angels on your left, and I'll look at the ones on my right. We have to go over to the police box at the corner of the room. Do you see it? Great. It's key for our escape. Come on now, let's not dally, shall we?'

And so they edged towards the police box at the corner of the sitting room, their backs against each other. It seemed to take forever for them to reach the police box.

'Do we push it somewhere?' Sherlock asked, when they reached it.

'Push it? No. We get into it.'

'How could a box hold off a hoard of intimidating statues that are capable of moving at their own accord?'

The Doctor seemed to be biting back a laugh. Almost as if he found Sherlock's words somewhat amusing.'Oh, they could do much more than move on their own accord. Now be a good boy and get in now, Sherlock Holmes.'

'What are those angels capable of doing? What is this box?'

He heard the Doctor sigh in exasperation. He's not going to answer my question, Sherlock thought. He's a grown-up. He'd just shout at me for being nosy and tell me to mind my own business. To his astonishment, the Doctor replied, 'The Weeping Angels are capable of sending you back in time by touching you-'

'What's so bad about that? I mean, that's like a really cool history trip, is it?'

'You can't come back. You won't be able to see your family ever, ever again.'

'Oh. Well, it's still like getting a second chance at life.' But Sherlock sounded less keen now. He was liking the Angels less and less by the second.

'Now, can you please step into the box? Or would you prefer being zapped back in time by a couple of intimidating stone angels?' The Doctor asked.

'So what might be so amazing and magical about this police box that-' Sherlock broke off as he stepped into the police box. It looked bigger on the inside. The middle of the room was occupied by a cylindrical, semi- transparent tube with control boards surrounding it. This thing- whatever it is- most definitely wasn't just a police box. 'Thoughts?' the Doctor asked as he strode towards the control panels and began to fiddle with the array of knobs. 'What kind of technology is this?' The Doctor seemed slightly surprised by the question. 'That's not what people normally say,' he mused. 'What do people normally say?'

'It's bigger on the inside.'

'That's what people do, state the overly obvious,' Sherlock stated with a shrug.

'You've got a point. Now, Sherlock, allow me to introduce to you the Time And Relative Dimension In Space, otherwise known as TARDIS. In more understandable terms, this is-'

'A machine that could travel through time and space. That's really cool.'

'Oh, it's way more than cool. Also, since when did-' the Doctor squinted at Sherlock,' - eight, nine years old children get so bright? You saved yourself from a hoard of Weeping Angels, know French and what the word technology means. You're one very clever little boy, aren't you?'

'I just turned six last week. And I'm not clever,' Sherlock looked down and shuffled his feet uncomfortably, 'My older brother says that I'm stupid. As in really, really stupid.'

'Well, I'm much more older than your brother and I can tell you that you are anything but stupid, Sherlock Holmes.' The Doctor looked at Sherlock in the eye, 'I have faith that you will go a long, long way and be a great man in the future.' He looked away then, his eyes widening in surprise as he stared at the cylindrical tube in the middle of the room. The pump- like mechanism was now going up and down, emitting a comforting wheezing sound as it did so. 'The TARDIS had just decided to fly itself for this trip. I wonder where we're going. Can we not go to somewhere dangerous? I mean it would be fun, but I do think our little passenger here had already had enough adventure to last him for the next decade.' It took Sherlock a moment to realise that the Doctor was, in fact, talking to the TARDIS. He wondered if the Doctor did that often. Then the careening of the TARDIS threw the two of them apart as the Doctor grabbed for the controls while Sherlock hung on to the railings for dear life.

The TARDIS skidded to a halt all of a sudden, as Sherlock stumbled around, attempting to gain his footing. The Doctor, meanwhile, looked at the door of the TARDIS as he murmured, 'I wonder.' Turning to Sherlock, he said, 'Go on, open the door.'

As Sherlock walked towards the door of the TARDIS, he contemplated the situation he was in right now. He was in a time machine, about to go to somewhere beyond his wildest imaginations. He had no idea where he was going to, and it excited and frightened him at the same time. Sherlock pushed the door, and it swung open.

In front of himm was space, speckled with suns and moons and stars that differed from that of the Solar System. 'The Andromeda Galaxy,' Sherlock murmured breathlessly. '2.5 million light years away from Earth, impossible for a human to travel so far to see with their own eyes. Oh god, I have always wanted to see this.'

'A six year old who knows about the Andromeda Galaxy,' the Doctor beamed. 'You do know quite a lot about everything, don't you?'

It was beautiful The purple and pink and dark blue of space mingled together, a festoon of beauteous colours. Sherlock did not know how long he spent there, floating in space as the Doctor held on to his ankle, as everything whirled on in front of his eyes, occasionally interrupted by the bright flash of a stray meteor. He knew that he had never felt happier in his life than right now, and that was all that mattered.

Yet all good things simply had to come to an end, and Sherlock's peace was interrupted by the Doctor, 'I ought to get you back. It seems that your parents and brother are coming back home. The Angels shouldn't bother you now that you are under your family's protection. You'll be all right now.' Sighing, Sherlock allowed the Doctor to reel him back in and send him home.

He had ran the question through his mind for multiple times, rephrasing it again and again, until finally he allowed the words to plop clumsily out of his mouth. 'Doctor, may I come with you on your travels?' For the Doctor had made him feel like he meant something, that he was clever, even, and Sherlock liked him because of it. 'The little expeditions I go on,' the Doctor started slowly, 'They are, for most of the time, anything but safe. I more- or- less go through near death situations every day.'

'I don't mind danger,' Sherlock stated.

' And I don't mind you,' the Doctor replied, 'But I'll still be bringing you home. You've got to pack up and tell your parents about where you're going, and then you can come with me. All right?' Sherlock beamed as he nodded his head like mad.

'I'll wait for you out here,' said the Doctor as the TARDIS landed in front of Sherlock's house. It was no longer night-time and the bright sunlight that streamed down from the sky made Sherlock happier than ever. He ran upstairs to pack his things, shouting a hello to his family as he did so, filled with anticipation and elation for what was to be. He ran back downstairs with his little backpack, 'I'm going on an adventure!' he shouted down at his parents and his brother. 'Be home by supper, will you?' asked his mother as she clinked around with the pots and pans. Sherlock stopped at that, but then he remembered that the TARDIS was also a time machine, so that was not going to be a problem. 'Shut up, Sherlock. You're interrupting my flow of thoughts,' Mycroft scowled at his little brother as Sherlock rushed by. Ignoring his older brother, Sherlock burst through the front door.

What he saw made him stop in his tracks. The TARDIS was wheezing. It began to fade, as the wheezing grew softer and softer, until the TARDIS and the wheezing sound became no more, as Sherlock stood on the doorstep, unable to move as realisation filled him. The Doctor had left him. The Doctor didn't want him. The Doctor wouldn't be coming back. Or would he? A little voice at the back of his mind asked. And so he sat there, on the steps of his front door, waiting for the Doctor to come back. He refused to go in to supper, he refused to go to bed. No matter how his mother shouted at him, no matter how his father tried to persuade him, no matter how his brother threw insult after insult at him, Sherlock Holmes refused to budge from the doorstep. It took him two whole weeks of no food and no sleep for his logical reasoning to win over his trust for the Doctor. The Doctor was gone, and he was not going to come back.

Sherlock dragged himself back to his room, zombie- like. It was then that he decided to enter his mind palace and do what he must do. It took him no time to locate the room, and he bursted into it, tearing it down. He willed himself to forget every single detail of the Solar System, as the facts that had rested in his palace since he was very, very young slipped from his fingers and dissolved into nothingness. He ripped and tore apart everything in the room, everything that had meant so much of him and to him during the past six years. Images of the Andromeda Galaxy shattered as he threw a fist at it, and when he looked back up from his fist dread, anger and hope pooled into his stomach. It was his memory of the TARDIS, with the Doctor with his messy hair and his big brown coat. 'Sherlock?' the Doctor asked, tilting his head.

Sherlock reached forward, reaching towards them, ready to crush them into a million tiny pieces. His hand was around them now, yet it refused to tighten, to slam into the memories of the TARDIS and the Doctor and crush them. He could feel his brain screaming at his hand, to do what it had been commanded to do, yet his hand refused to yield. It was then that he realised that he could never forget someone who had saved his life. And so, in the wrecked room of his mind palace, Sherlock Holmes retracted his hand, curled up and began to cry.


	2. Chapter 2

'I don't like this,' John murmured to Sherlock as they descended into the basement of the Victorian mansion which 43 year old Charles Forrester had mysteriously disappeared just that morning, followed by both his driver and his cleaning lady who had went down there in an attempt to locate him.

'It's not like we have a choice to not investigate this, do we?' stuttered Jacob Forrester, Charles's brother.

Choosing to ignore his companions, Sherlock began his journey down the stairs as he asked, 'Jonas, what does your brother normally use his basement for?'

'Jacob,' he corrected, 'Charles doesn't use it much, mostly for storage for his books and CDs and whatnot. In all honesty, I don't blame him for not utilizing the place fully. This place has quite some… let's say history. Some say that this place is haunted.'

'And I have no interest in rumors and gossips,' Sherlock replied briskly as he flipped on the light switch of the eerily quiet basement. A lone lightbulb situated in the middle of the room flickered weakly to life.

'Good thing we brought flashlights then,' John stated grimly, giving the other two men theirs as they continued into the basement.

'Charles?' Jacob raised his voice. 'Come on out, Charles.'

'Well now,' Sherlock stated grimly as he allowed his eyes to sweep over the room, 'It appears that Charles, his driver and his cleaning lady aren't here.'

'But it can't be!' Jacob exclaimed, 'Look here, there's no other way to exit the basement without going back up and I was there when he went down. I heard him scream, and my brother isn't someone who gets frightened easily. That was why his driver and his cleaning lady went down and they didn't come back up either, not even after a long long time had passed. And that was why I contacted you.'

'Because you were too scared to go investigate by yourself,' Sherlock filled in cheerfully.

'Sherlock!' John reprimanded.

'Well he's right,' murmured Jacob.

Sherlock scanned the dimly lit room, cluttered with shelves of books and CD racks and boxes with labels such as 'broken fridge' or 'ball pit' and the like. Standing at the middle of the room, right below the lightbulb, allowed him to have a clear view of the entire room, yet he could see no sign of struggle or upset of any kind- so it couldn't have been a kidnapping plan, which wouldn't have made sense anyway as no one in the right mind would kidnap a driver nor a cleaning lady along with a downright boring man with no particular value whatsoever. It didn't seem to be some twisted form of elopement or attempt to escape from Jacob Forrester for whatever reason- it just didn't make sense.

Then it clicked- the lack of any sign of life whatsoever, not even the odd spider skittering about amongst the piles of dusty, abandoned relics with layers of dust over them. The uncanny disappearance of multiple people in one go. A sense of deja vu filled him as he looked around the room once again, running his eyes carefully over every unidentified shape, dreading the sight of an Angel, or, God forbid, a hoard of angels in the room, their hands covering their faces. And he could not help but hope that the Doctor was somewhere near, that he would reappear and save the day. The reminiscence was swiftly replaced by a hatred that had not lessened throughout the years- hatred at the Doctor for abandoning him. A sense of relief and bitterness filled him as he noted that there were no Angels in the room, yet he could not shake off the feeling that there was something distinctly alien within the room.

'Sherlock?' John asked, shaking him out of his reverie.

His better judgement told him to get everyone out of the basement as soon as possible before any harm came to anyone, yet he wanted to stay and investigate, for he was very much fascinated by whatever force it was that made three people disappear without a trace. It was then that Jacob gave an exasperated sigh and stalked towards one of the many towering boxes, stating, 'You know what Charles, if this was all a prank, it's too much. Come out! Now!' At that, he reached for one of the boxes, yet he never got around to touching it as he emitted a blood- curdling scream and crumbled- right in front of the eyes of Sherlock and John- to nothing.

'Oh well,' John muttered after a prolonged silence as both men stared in shock at what was formerly Jacob Forrester, 'Now we know how exactly all those people disappeared. Great. We can leave now.' He moved to step out of the halo of light created by the dim lightbulb above their heads as Sherlock moved swiftly to pull him back.

John was evidently frightened and Sherlock could barely blame him. Yet there was something very odd he noticed moments before Jacob crumbled into pieces that he had an extremely bad feeling about.

'John,' he began, keeping his voice as calm as possible, 'Before Jacob disappeared, he had two shadows.'

'So? Trick of light! Whatever! Let's go, Sherlock.'

'Look at the shadows around us, John, look very, very carefully. Jacob died because he left the only patch of light there is in this entire basement. My theory is that if we step into shadows, we die.'

'Well then Sherlock, enlighten me on how exactly we managed to stay alive when we first entered this basement?'

'The thing- whatever it is- I think we woke it by coming down here. It's now fully awake and hunting for its prey.'

'Are you telling me we're currently encountering something… supernatural?'

'Surprise, John. And sadly enough, yes. But I wouldn't consider them as something supernatural, more of something alien.' The image of the Doctor flashed before his eyes once again.

John's expression suddenly brightened, 'Sherlock, but if it only lurks around in shadows, what we can do will be to generate a path of light so to walk out of here safely! Easy!' He exclaimed, brandishing the flashlight in his hand.

Sherlock emitted a bitter laugh as he said, 'Yes John, but where to?'

John gestured at the door of the basement, and as realization hit him, his smile slid off from his face. To enter and exit from the basement, one would need a key. A key which had, just moments ago, been vaporized into nothing, along with its owner.

Whilst John stood there, stupefied, attempting to absorb the new information, Sherlock felt something shift behind him, something that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Then he realized something rather odd. The circle of light around them appears to have shrunk. It had been big enough to allow three men to stand far apart when they had first entered the room. Yet now, despite how John and him were standing shoulder to shoulder, there still appeared to be a lack of space. 'John?' he said, 'The circle of light is shrinking.' At that, he flipped the switch of his flashlight. Yet nothing happened.

'Damn,' John murmured as he attempted to switch on his, which, thankfully, was capable of emitting a weak, flickering glow. Sherlock scanned the room once again desparately, and finally something caught his eye. It was the glimpse of a blue, rectangular object, hidden in the most darkly shadowed corners of the basement.

'John,' he murmured, 'You see that shape over there? Look closely, and you'll be able to see a glimpse of blue. That object might be able to help us get out of here. What we do now is to shine the flashlight towards the floor, making the circle of light big enough for two of us, and get there somehow.'

'It might be able to get us out of here, you say. What are the odds?'

'Very, very slim.'

'Let's do it then,' John stated as he reached for the flashlight. Yet he halted at the last second, turning around to face Sherlock instead. And the next thing he knew, Sherlock's lips were on his and his hands were buried in Sherlock's hair as they hung on to each other so tight it hurt but they couldn't care less. The kiss was over as suddenly as it had began, as they both took a step back, slightly abashed, as John dutifully flipped on the switch of the flashlight and they began to edge across the room.

Sherlock's breath hitched every time the flashlight threatened to flicker, as the both of them carefully shifted forward while doing all they could to stay in the weak circle of light. The silence thickened as Sherlock felt goosebumps raise at the back of his neck. After what seemed to be centuries, they finally reached the other end of the room. Sherlock breathed a sigh of relief as they neared the blue object, yet he heard John gasp just as he felt something connect against the back of his leg hard. Spinning around, he realized that John was losing his balance and falling back into the shadows. Reaching forward, he gripped onto John's arms and pushed back with all his might in the direction of the blue mass that would either be the TARDIS or the place where both of them would be disintegrated into nothing.


End file.
